


A Path of Cinders

by netweight



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Consent Issues, F/M, Incest, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:44:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/netweight/pseuds/netweight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two through the scorched earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Path of Cinders

**Author's Note:**

> I've learned, after already having finished writing this, that there is some backstory about the events surrounding the Hale House fire in the TW novel "On Fire". I have, however, not read it and this fic does not take it into account.
> 
> Many, many thanks to [shadoedseptmbr](http://archiveofourown.org/users/shadoedseptmbr/pseuds/shadoedseptmbr) without whose help and encouragement this would have not been finished. All remaining flaws and shortcomings are my responsibility.

* * *

 

Derek is still at the sheriff's office when Laura arrives.  
  
They had to call her back from college.  
  
Harvard, because that's the kind of people they are. They pay their taxes and have bank accounts and the kids go to school. They fit. They belong.  
  
Except Derek is sitting in a chair at the sheriff's offices when Laura arrives and people have been asking him questions. His mother died the night before. His dad, his uncles and aunts and cousins. His little sister.  
  
"Where were you? School hours were over and you were not at home. Where were you?"  
  
He's been sitting in a hard chair for hours and he’s very cold.  
  
But Laura - Laura strides in with fire in her eyes. Laura is the nice one, the funny one. The genius child with the easy smile and soft eyes, who people like and trust. Laura strides in with the smell of home, of family and Derek can rest now.  
  
He closes his eyes and tries to stop shaking.  
  
\--  
  
Deputy Stilinski offers him a cup of scalding coffee and the saddest of smiles.  
  
Laura paces. She never raises her voice, but she paces. Back and forth, back and forth. Derek wants to tell her to stop, she's giving the game away.  
  
"I don't understand why you’re holding him –"  
  
"We're not, he's just been brought in for questioning –"  
  
"I don't understand what you're questioning him about. What is he, a suspect?"  
  
"Try to see it from our side, Miss Hale. Almost all of your family died and your brother can’t account for his whereabouts."  
  
"And what? Derek killed them all for the money?" she snorts.  
  
"Well, it is common knowledge your family is pretty well-off…"  
  
“There was an anonymous tip,” Deputy Stillinski interrupts. The sheriff frowns at him.  
  
Laura stops. Derek sees her hands clench by her sides and the metallic tang of blood carries through the air.  
  
"We're not saying another word until we get a lawyer."  
  
Derek never drinks the coffee, just keeps holding the cup, the heat burning the palms of his hands.  
  
\--  
  
There are papers to sign. Predictable objections that Laura dismisses with a blank face and furious eyes.  
  
"He's a minor."  
  
"I'm of age."  
  
When they're finally released, a van is parked across the street, a small group of men standing around. Laura nods towards it, mouth a strict line.  
  
"Hunters."  
  
Kate is in the front seat. It’s then he puts two and two together.  
  
She calls later that night.  
  
"So, I see you have a sister. Shame on you, Derek, not telling. I would have waited for Thanksgiving. Waited until big sis was home. Gotta tell you though, I never would have guessed you two are related. She kinda looks like me, don't you think?”  
  
He smashes the phone against the wall.  
  
\--  
  
Laura gave him his first kiss when he was thirteen, the kind of stupid thing they should've known better about but kept on pulling anyway, like daring each other to jump off the cliffs at the edge of the forest and see if they could land in one piece.  
  
"So this girl you like," Laura said, elbowing him. "When you gonna put the moves on her?"  
  
Vanessa Higgins. He'd had the biggest crush on her. Laura waggled her eyebrows, halfway between goofy and lewd.  
  
"Stop it," he said, trying to push her away. Fucking blushing.  
  
"What? Are you embarrassed? You’re gonna have to quit with the whole bashful virgin act or you’re never gonna get laid, Derek."  
  
"I'm thirteen, Laura!" and then he'd muttered, looking down at his shoes," I've never even kissed anyone yet."  
  
Laura had slung her arm round his shoulders and pulled him to her. “Hey,” she said and nuzzled along his cheek, nose cold, until he looked at her. Then she'd placed her mouth on his, lips firm and closed and held the kiss. One, two, three beats before pulling away.  
  
"Not so hard, huh?"  
  
He stayed silent before hushing, "I can't believe you did that."  
  
"What are big sisters for if not completely inappropriate rites of passage?" she'd shrugged, awkward, starting to disentangle herself.  
  
He'd stopped her with a hand on her waist.  
  
"About the hard part…"  
  
"Oh, gross." She shoved his shoulder.  
  
They stayed like that, looking out over the city. A pack of two, winter at their backs, the scent of pine needles still in her hair from the last full moon run.  
  
\--  
  
Uncle Peter lies in a coma in the hospital bed, bandaged and intubated, machines beeping an artificial rhythm to his heart.  
  
They don't know if he'll make it. Laura talks to the doctor in charge while Derek retches in the bathroom, the stench of charred flesh and antiseptic burning down his throat.  
  
\--  
  
Kate had asked him for directions. That’s how they met.  
  
"My sense of orientation is for shit. And around here everything is woods and more woods. Can you help me to the motel?"  
  
It was on the other side of town but he took her there.  
  
"At least, let me buy you some coffee. As a thank you."  
  
She told him she was a journalist for an architectural magazine, writing about old houses up and down the west coast. Asked him if he knew about the eighteen eighties estate, maybe who owned it? He'd stammered it was his family's.  
  
"Well, isn’t that a coincidence?" she'd grinned.  
  
She asked him about the town. "What's good to do around here?" eyes fastened on him.  
  
He drove her back to the motel. She said, "I'd ask you in for coffee, but we just had some."  
  
And he knew he shouldn't, she was older and he didn’t know her, but he was also sixteen and heartbroken and the loneliness was killing him.  
  
"You ever done this before?" she asked, hands at his belt, backing him against the door, mouth against his. He looked down, gave a minute shake of his head.  
  
She yanked his jeans down, said, "Oh, sweetie, that's such a waste," before dropping to her knees and swallowing him down.  
  
After, in bed, he asked, "show me what to do," and she dug nails into his scalp, held him between her legs, and he came again rutting against the sheets, nose at her clit, tongue licking inside her.  
  
\--  
  
The motel manager looks him up and down when he and Laura check in, but makes no comment. He gets them a different room.  
  
Laura can't stay still. Her heartbeat picks up again and again before she wrestles it back under control. Earlier, she went out for food they ended up not eating, the burgers and fries going cold.  
  
"I'm going out," she finally says, heading for the door.  
  
"Where?"  
  
"For a smoke."  
  
"I thought you'd quit."  
  
"Guess I'm picking it up again. You should get some sleep."  
  
She doesn’t slam the door shut, but it’s a near thing.  
  
Derek sits at the foot of the bed. They didn't have singles. He doesn't turn the covers down.  
  
Where were you?  
  
Being fucked.  
  
He goes into the bathroom and splashes water onto his face. When he looks up, the mirror shows him a skinny kid with dark circles under his eyes.  
  
Too young. Too stupid.  
  
He needs to scrub off the ash. The grime.  
  
When he comes back out, she still hasn't returned.  
  
\--  
  
"Laura!"  
  
The shout echoes in the fog, the night grey and damp. The trees are columns of black. He runs, the sounds muffled and distorted, multiplying.  
  
He isn't alone.  
  
Ahead, a shadow steps out of the darkness, huge and monstrous. Eyes red.  
  
Fear floods him, chilling and suffocating.  
  
The creature roars, a deafening sound, and charges. It collides with him head-on, the force of the impact throwing him to the ground, winded and bruised, doubled in two. It climbs on top of him, crushing him with its weight and bares its teeth, jowls open at his throat.  
  
It stops before its jaws snap closed and flattens his face to the earth, palm covering his whole head, claws curving around his skull. It sniffs at his neck, wet nose tracing the skin over his jugular.  
  
It rips his shirt, nails carving gashes into his chest. Then it burrows into the split flesh, laps at the blood. He screams as it gnaws a wound over his heart.  
  
His world narrows to the dull roar of blood in his ears, the tongue slavering down his chest, the hot weight pinning him down, the wet earth all along his back and its musty smell mingled with the headier scent of arousal.  
  
He feels the alpha's features soften into a more familiar shape as it nuzzles along his stomach and his hands settle over her head, follow the length of hair down to the skin of her naked shoulders, her clothes in tatters.  
  
She crouches above him, knees folded on either side of his hips and rubs herself against him, rolls her hips down.  
  
His breath hitches.  
  
When she worms a hand between them he closes his eyes, shuts them tight against the building pleasure as she strokes.  
  
She scrapes blunt teeth beneath his jaw. Sighs. "Derek."  
  
Then her body stiffens and she scrambles backwards, hands slipping on the mat of leaves. Her eyes are open wide, disbelieving, and she clamps trembling fingers over her mouth.  
  
He's disoriented for a moment. Then he moves forward, clasps hands around her arms and shakes. "Laura!" he fights to keep his voice down, to choke the panic. "There are hunters in town! We can't be out!"  
  
She stares at him, uncomprehending. Then her head snaps to the side at the sound of footsteps in the distance.  
  
They hunker down, listening, until the noise fades.  
  
After, she reaches for his face, holds it. Peers at him, like looking for the answer to a question, breath condensing in the cold air.  
  
Then she nods, says, "Yes. Let's go."  
  
\--  
  
They clear out of town the next day.  
  
When Derek asks about the funerals, Laura replies, "the lawyers will take care of it." And then, after a beat, low, "There isn't much to bury anyway."  
  
\--  
  
They drive around the country for the next couple of years, never staying in one place long. They give up on cities pretty quickly, neither of them at ease with the people, the crowds, the noise, the smells.  
  
They stick to deserted roads, driving on empty those first months, the sky vast over their heads.  
  
And they don't talk about the way Derek always checks for exits in any place they eat or sleep, the way he looks at regular people like they are enemies. The way she jumps if he touches her unexpectedly.  
  
They don't talk about many things.  
  
They work their way up to places with colleges and old libraries, Laura having them riffle through dusty old tomes on folklore and pagan mythology in an obsessive search for knowledge, for answers.  
  
After a while, the stories start to repeat themselves, less new information with each cycle of the moon.  
  
Laura goes out to bars and hooks up with random strangers.  
  
Derek works himself out in ratty old gyms until he's nothing but muscle and will, hard inside and out. He runs until he can’t move his legs, until the breath rattles in his lungs, until he comes to bed and crashes into sleep and doesn't have to feel anything at all.  
  
\--  
  
One night, he comes to the apartment they're renting to find some guy all over her.  
  
He drops the book she had him looking for on the table. The look of surprise and then fear on the man’s face is almost comical.  
  
"Whoa, you didn't tell me you had a boyfriend! Look, man, I didn't know!"  
  
"Relax, it's just my brother."  
  
"Brother, huh?" He blanches under Derek's stare. "Bullshit. I'm out of here," and all but runs out the door.  
  
Laura drops her head on the back of the couch and tugs her hair back from her forehead, glares at the ceiling, then rests her hands on her thighs.  
  
"You know, Derek, you should get out some. Smile. Get laid. Maybe you wouldn't be in such a mood all the time."  
  
"Yeah. Because that's working out so well for you," he says, an ugly twist to his mouth.  
  
She’s glaring at him now. "What do you want me to do?"  
  
"I want us to stop running, Laura," he gestures between the two of them. "Us! You and me."  
  
I want us to be a family again. I want back what we had, he doesn't say.  
  
He's so tired of the things they don't say. About that night and this quest of hers and all the questions she doesn't voice about their family dying. And him living.  
  
"So you want us to, what? Settle down in the middle of nowhere and cut all ties to civilization?" she shoots back. "Fucking hide in that place in Alaska you've been siphoning money to?"  
  
"We're hiding now!" he says, at the same time, and then shuts up, caught.  
  
She sneers. "You thought I didn't know? We need to keep looking. There is still more out there to learn. Risks, threats, protections…"  
  
"And who is going to teach us?"  
  
"There are people, people whose mission is to aid –"  
  
"Aid werewolves? Aid our family?" He’s heard it all before. "Where were they the night of the fire? We can only count on ourselves and you know it."  
  
She stops and looks at him, deflates. Not angry anymore, just sad. He sees the doubt in her eyes, like she thinks she failed him.  
  
"No one person can live alone," she says slowly.  
  
"We wouldn't be alone."  
  
She looks away first. Her hand twitches by her side. He comes and takes it, before she can brush fingers over her lips, that gesture that betrays her.  
  
He twines their fingers together instead.  
  
She looks down at their joined hands, then up, at him.  
  
"Okay. Yes."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Yes. Not to cutting all ties to civilization. But stopping. Yes. For a while." She tightens her grip, swings their joint fists, awkward. "Can't believe you thought I didn't know."  
  
He smiles, sheepish. Then hugs her.  
  
"We try it out. Three months," she warns, voice muffled against his neck.  
  
He kisses her hair, keeps holding her.  
  
"Thank you," he says, low. "You won't regret it."  
  
\--  
  
Three months turn into six. Six turn into a year.  
  
Every couple of months, Laura wanders off, argues that they need to keep researching, find out about others, about themselves, returning with some valuable piece of information, old lore and rumors about packs.  
  
And things are good. And if Derek shouts himself awake some nights, it's not like they both don't have ample reasons for nightmares.  
  
\--  
  
On the night of the fire's fifth anniversary, Laura gets blindingly drunk on whisky older than they are. Because, she says at some point, if they are going to drink to their dead family, better do it right. It is quite the feat, alpha physiology keeping on pushing her back to sobriety.  
  
"I never wanted it, you know? Being the alpha. I was going to leave all that to you."  
  
That's when he gives up on trying to make her stop and waves for the bottle instead. He slides down to sit at her feet, back against the couch. "Give me that."  
  
The fire crackles on the hearth, the only light in the room.  
  
"You'd be good at it. Me, I was gonna go and… fuck, I don't even know. I had so many stupid dreams. Majoring in pharmacology or molecular biology and finding out a way to control the shift. Isolate the gene or the virus, or whatever it is…"  
  
"It's not a disease, we don't need to be cured," he says, terse. Angry.  
  
She sloshes the alcohol in the glass.  
  
"We don't? Sometimes, I wonder." She’s silent for a minute before speaking again. "Sometimes, I think I've done you more harm than good."  
  
He turns to look at her. "Laura…"  
  
"Was it me? Why you're so unhappy all the time, was it me?"  
  
She slurs the words together and he can't tell if she means back then or now.  
  
He gets up on his knees, reaches for her face. "No, Laura, it wasn't you," and then, because she doesn't seem to believe him and he can't think of another way to convince her, he kisses her, the way they did the first time. Closed-lipped, chaste. Pulls back to rest his forehead against hers. Whispers, "Never you."  
  
\--  
  
She startles awake when he slides between her sheets that night.  
  
Stops him with a hand on his chest.  
  
"Let me," he begs. "Laura. Let me."  
  
The pads of her fingers smooth over the raised edges of the scar she left there, the mark faint now. Back and forth, back and forth. She peers at it in the dark, but it has faded over time, traceable only by touch. She halts the motion, rests her fist there and meets his eyes.  
  
He surges forward, closes the distance between them and kisses her.  
  
It's nothing like the other times.  
  
He clasps a hand behind her neck and opens his mouth against hers. Swallows her surprised gasp and tastes her slowly, waits until her hands come up to grasp his hair, before turning it deeper, sharing breath, hot and humid, before pulling her firmly to him and slotting them together.  
  
He topples her down, slides a leg between hers and cups a breast, thumb grazing the nipple. Maps the slope of ribs and belly, her heartbeat thumping under her skin. She spreads for him, for his fingers pushing inside, finding the places that make her arch up.  
  
He remembers how this goes.  
  
She watches him, heavy-lidded over the faint glow of red. Clenches at the first stroke and he fucks her through it, hands at her ass, angling it right to make it good because he knows he won't last. It's been too long.  
  
He pulls out before coming, ridding it out in the crease of her thigh.  
  
"Who was it?" she asks later, lying on top of him, chin in her hands.  
  
"It doesn’t matter," he answers, looking at the ceiling.  
  
"Derek," she touches the curve of his cheek, wills him to look at her.  
  
They lock eyes, time stretching in the infinite momentum of possibility, of all the things they can say, all the truths and secrets, professions of love and forevers. Until he pulls her underneath him and kisses her again.  
  
"It doesn't matter anymore."  
  
\--  
  
A year after that, he comes down for breakfast one morning to find her strapping down a backpack.  
  
"Where're you going this time?" he asks pouring a cup of coffee.  
  
"Beacon Hills."  
  
The cup breaks in his hand.  
  
She levels a sharp look his way. "You're not coming." She zips up her bag. "We're not arguing over this."  
  
He's silent for a minute before asking, "what are you doing down there?"  
  
"Animal attack. I'm checking it out."  
  
"Who'll watch your back?"  
  
"What part of 'we're not arguing over this' wasn't clear?" she yanks viciously at the fastenings. Punches it one final time, clenches her fists on top of it. "Look, I'm sure it's nothing."  
  
He doesn't believe her for a second. She reaches out to him. "Derek."  
  
He turns around. Opens the faucet and washes the blood off his hand. Picks the bits of ceramic out.  
  
"Derek, come on. Can't you see I just can't?"  
  
Can't risk him, can't put him in danger. She’s the alpha and it's her responsibility. It's still a mistake.  
  
"Call me. Every day," he relents, gripping the sink. "Don't do anything stupid. Don't trust anyone." And then hugging her, holding on tight, "Come back."  
  
"Don't I always?"  
  
But she doesn't this time.  
  
\--  
  
The day Laura got her college acceptance letter, Derek went into her room to find her talking on the phone with a friend.  
  
"I thought Coach Finstock was gonna cry. Or hug us. Or both," came a tiny voice from the other side.  
  
"'Do us proud! Take this lacrosse mask to remember your Beacon Hills origins!'" lying in bed, Laura pumped a fist up in the air. There was a bout of chortled laughter on the other end, interrupted by Laura's, "I've gotta go, my brother's here."  
  
"Tonight! Celebration! Stanford, here I come!"  
  
"See you in a couple of hours, Jess."  
  
She hung off and turned to face Derek sitting in her bed, looking at his feet. "What's up?"  
  
He shrugged.  
  
"It's a helmet."  
  
"What?"  
  
"A lacrosse helmet. Not a mask."  
  
"Okaaay. Mister Macgrumpy Pants."  
  
He cut a look her way before lowering his head again.  
  
"You're coming back, right? After. You’ll come back."  
  
She sat up and moved beside him.  
  
"Hey," she said. Slung an arm around his shoulders, looked straight at him. "You and me, Derek. You and me."  
  
\--  
  
He buries the remains of her body with his own hands. What he can find.  
  
Leaves her eyes open as he shovels the earth in.  
  
Uncoils the rope of wolfsbane on the ground and vows vengeance with each turn of the spiral.  
  
"They'll pay. I'll make them pay."  
  
There should be more to say.  
  
He stands over her unmarked grave and drinks to her. Takes a swig of bourbon and upends the rest on the ground.  
  
\--  
  
"Do you ever wonder 'what if', Derek?" Kate asks after Allison leaves, cocking her head to the side. "What if something had been different? What if you returned home earlier? What if you'd been a good boy and said no? Maybe your family would still be alive and you wouldn’t be all alone in the world."  
  
"I'll kill you!" he growls, rattling the chains manacling him to the bars.  
  
"Oh, sweetie. Empty threats. You would have done it already if you could."  
  
She turns the dial up and he burns, burns.  
  
\--  
  
"You know," Peter says conversationally a month later. Back from the dead, like the wolf in the stories of old.  
  
He makes the hair stand on the back of Derek's neck.  
  
"What?" he grunts.  
  
"Kate. It wasn't revenge. It was justice."  
  
Derek looks at him, suspiciously. "Why are you telling me this?"  
  
"I just wanted to make it clear. Since you knew her. From before."  
  
Derek doesn't say anything.  
  
"No?" asks Peter. "Funny, I could have sworn… but I could be mistaken. Old nose playing tricks." The corner of his mouth curls up, mocking.  
  
There's nothing Derek can say to that. Instead he asks, "And Laura?"  
  
Peter smiles then, in that fake earnest way of his, eyes crinkling. "You got me there."  
  
He's got pale eyes, Derek notices. Like him and like Laura. Wolf eyes.  
  
"You need me," Peter reminds him.  
  
Derek remembers how it felt to slash claws across his neck, shred the skin, dig into the flesh. The hot gush of blood splattering him, the smell mixing with the sour of chemical burn and Kate's blood cauterized underneath.  
  
All his debts paid.  
  
He wants to do it again. Finish the job Kate has begun.  
  
Blood runs thicker, though. Across generations and trickling through the floorboards, in the ruins of their family house, blood ran thicker.  
  
"There's still a lot that I can teach you," Peter says too.  
  
He's right. Derek does need him.  
  
That night, standing over Laura's grave, he opens a new bottle.  
  
"I have some things to take care of first. But don't worry. I'm getting you back."  
  
And then he's going to put the bastard in the ground for good.


End file.
